My Unique Blessings

Here are some new pictures of my blessings!

Claire in a few words: thinker; confident yet timid; girly and very silly.

Matthew in a few words: all boy; musical; compassionate; rough and tumble.

Micah in a few words: people person; big talker; confident go-getter.

The Polite Frenchmen (& women too)

I'm sure all Americans have heard the saying that the French are considered to be rude people. I have lived in Paris, France for almost 2 years and can testify that they are not any more rude than other big city people. I can also say that the times we have been outside of Paris and in the smaller towns have shown the countryside Frenchmen to be very kind. In many ways the French are a much more polite society than what I grew up in.

As a child we were always to place Mr., Mrs., or Miss in front of a person's name unless they were our age. I still find that I must call people significantly older than me by those titles. However, in France, the use of the equivilant (Monsieur, Madame, and Madmoiselle) are used often. For instance, when I speak to a sales lady to ask a question I always say, "Excusez-moi, Madame...." (excuse me ma'am) and then enter into my question. And every time we greet a neighbor we always use the appropriate title with the proper greeting. We could simply begin speaking, but there is a certain form of respect expected among the French people. It doesn't matter how old you are you still speak with titles and formal addressing.

In France, they also have two different words for you. One form is singular and informal; the other form is plural and formal. Until you know a person well you use the formal version, after the friendship is more solid there will be a point at which you ask about using the informal you. From this point on the informal you is used. With those who are 20 or more years older than us, the formal you is always used; they in turn can use the informal you with those that are much younger. Confusing yet??? Children are always addressed in the informal you no matter if you know them or not. It is really quite an interesting form of respect in the culture.

So why do Americans view the French as rude or harsh? Simply because there is a cultural misunderstanding. In France, privacy is valued (especially in the big cities) and they are introverted in their personalities as a whole; and although we like our privacy in America, as a whole, we are a more extroverted people. In France, you will often not know a person's name until after several good conversations. In fact, in my childrens' school I am not known by my name but as "la maman de Claire et Matthew". On the other hand, in America I can know a person's name (and maybe even a personal history) simply by having a conversation in a check-out line.

This next point varies from school to school. However, I do know that in some junior highs and high schools in France, the students must rise and greet the teacher together when he/she walks into the room. Wow!

It must also be understood that they have a much different history than ours. After all, how many times has the US been invaded or had govermental overthrows? Think about what America might be like if we had been used to such violent changes. Think about how our "American Personality" might be different than it is now. And just for the record, the French view of the typical American is that they are shallow. I have been told that by several French friends. I think it mostly comes from their love of watching American movies where they see the actors lives and the lives portrayed in the movies. It may or may not be true, but it's never bad to check ourselves.

I say all this because it was a shock to my American viewpoint when I arrived over here and experienced the "French Personality". But here are some of the main things I have learned or observed:

• When I meet those who are culturally different than us (even other Americans) I can't forget to view them within their history and to recognize those things that are wonderfully specific to them. I have learned to love the stereotypical French, and feel fairly comfortable in their culture. Other cultures are now very interesting to me and I love studying them or watching documentaries on them.
• I have also been reminded of the kindness and biblical mandates involved in the politeness to and respect of our elders and peers.
• The French are wonderfully loyal people. Yes there are steps to get to know someone and ways to go about a friendship, but once you are friends you are good friends and you help each other in times of need. I truly adore their loyalty!
• This last one is a little check on our own culture. Americans are loud, no offence, but it's true. I can be on a bus with Arab, French, American, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish nationalities; and do you know who I hear? The Spanish and the Americans with the Americans usually out doing them all. :) Not necessarily a bad thing, but very interesting. (Is it strange that I only speak French around them? I'm just not sure if I can handle a boisterous American converstaion outside of my American context.)

Don't worry, I still love America and it's culture, but now I can add France to my list of cultures I have grown to love living in. I wonder which culture could be next!!!

Learning Contentment Through the Non-Convenient.

I looked around the hospital room in shock. This is one of the nicer, private hospitals in Paris, yet the decor consists of 3 oddly placed posters taped to the wall. The walls are the color of...hmmm...we'll call it taupe, very faded taupe; and there is no remote for the television. However, the room is clean, I have a nice bed to sleep in, and there is a bathroom in the room. After a couple hours of annoyance, I remembered that I was making the same mistake all over again. What was that mistake? Viewing my circumstances through American eyes.

Our family will have lived in Paris, France for 2 years in May. You would think that life in Paris would seem normal most of the time by now. But I have to admit that there are many, many times when I still have to fight my American desires for convenience and and modern hospital rooms!

There are many other women whom I have met living in foreign countries that seem very content with where they live and often say that America seems foreign to them. Maybe it is that I haven't lived here long enough or that I am easily a discontent person (something about which I currently see God working on in my life). But I do know that my desires for the American conveniences are often on my mind. Sometimes I think about how great mini-vans with big comphy carseats are. Other times, I think about backyards, huge shopping shopping carts, giant craft stores, and many times I think about how nice it would be to see family more than just on Skype.

As of late, I have reazlied that this is a very suttle thing that can turn into a very big thing; and Satan is ready to run with it. The Christian life is a battle, and my battle right now is contentement. It's easy to dismiss the seemingly little feelings and desires as natural human reactions to the things of life. But those so called "natural" feelings are just the things that cause us to fall.

The first step is seeing the temptation, but it must quickly be followed by prayer and consistent time in God's word. For me, I have found that my prayers during times like this can be shallow and full of distrust of God's plan for me. However, we have an amazing Father that listens to us better than anyone could be capable of, and do you know what? He already knows everything that is going on in our hearts, so why shouldn't we talk to Him about it? It's amazing the peace that he gives after truly pouring out our hearts to Him. And even though it looks like a mountain of discouragement in front of us, we also know that we have a God who can move moutains.

I may not ever fully adjust to living in France, but I do know I can rely on God's all-knowing, good, and loving character. He will not give me anything that I cannot handle. So I will love the times of traveling in a train and not having to worry about car upkeep or city traffic, keeping fit simply by climbing thousands of metro steps, and being within 5 minutes walking distance from 4 of our most used stores.

From my very limited experience, I have found that many women struggle with contentement. We either long to have the adventure overseas, or the suburbean life in the States, or a better house, or a newer wardrobe, or a budget that makes life easier. We become jealous of our friends and question our value as a child of God.

My personal challenge this month is to choose to learn contentment. Think about what Paul said in Philippians 4:11-13. He learned to be content. Contentment isn't just a feeling that God hands to us, it is a process; and the only way we truly learn to be content is through the times of humble means and times of prosperity; times of being hungry and times of being full, times of having abundance and times of being needy. It is through these things that God teaches us contentment. It is an amazing lesson that God desires to teach us. However, as with all life lessons, we must not only listen to the lesson but act on it. We must choose to be flexible clay in the Potter's hand and step, wth full faith, onto His potter's wheel.

Jardin d'Acclimation

This last Thursday our family took an outing to the Jardin d'Acclimation! This is a children's play park/farm/amusement park that is connected to the Bois de Boulogne, which is a great place for hiking and getting out of the city. Anyway, we went with on of the French mothers that I am getting to know in our neighborhood and her twin girls. I have some pictures of the park to show you, but before I do I must tell you the story of taking a double wide stroller into the metro!

I will call my friend "A" just so the phrase "my friend" doesn't get obnoxious. Anyway, A's twins are barely 2, so going to a place like the Jardin d'Acclimation can be quite the pain without a double stroller. A has a double wide stroller, and so she asked if Jonathan wouldn't mind if she brought it and then he could help her down the metro stairs with it. Anyone that has ever ridden the Paris metro (or any subway for that matter) knows that there are a lot of stairs. So, I took Micah in my wrap and had my other two kids hold my hands. Jonathan threw our small stroller on his back and helped A up and down the stairs with the stroller. It was heavy, but he didn't complain once. What a man! However, the stairs were the least of our problems with a stroller that wide on the metro. At the ticket turn stiles, there are usually gates to let strollers through, so we had no issues with those. The problem came getting out of the metro.

Picture this scene with me...In many metro exits there are doors that swing outward to let people exit, but only when there is enough weight on the pad in front of it. If there is not enough weight, they close (this keeps people from coming in from the outside without paying). However, these doors are only big enough for one person to walk through at a time (when we walk through with the kids, they are right in front of us). Therefore, when we arrived at our exit and found that these doors were what we had to exit through there was a problem. Both of her girls had fallen asleep 5 minutes earlier, so they tried squeezing it through, but simply could not. Then, A took one of her girls out and they folded up one part of the stroller. However, it still did not quite fit through; but a nice man saw our problem. While he pushed and held the door open as far as it would go, Jonathan squeezed the stroller through the door. The scene was quite commical to watch, because the man had to hold it open until the entire stroller was through, so he was stratling the stroller at one point. Meanwhile, many other people were exiting the station and looking at us like we were crazy. Thankfully, there were not as many stairs on the way home and no exit doors like those. But the double stroller did come in quite handy. :)

Here are some pictures from the park. The kids had a great time, and the weather was great!

Sorry the pictures aren't very good. We had our little camera with us.

Riding the train to get to the park.

Isn't it pretty?

This was a super cute ride that my kids loved.

Claire was very excited to find a pink 4 wheeler to drive. Matthew just thought he was "the man".

The twins loved the goats.

Have a wonderful week enjoying God's blessings!

Sarah

My Parisian Grocery Cart--Part 3

First of all, I must say that I have been proven wrong, and I have never been so happy for that to happen as I am now. Two of my American friends living in France have informed me that I can buy baking soda here. So far, I have not been able to find it in my local stores; but now that I know it is out there I am more than thrilled. Hmmmm...maybe I should post about more things I can't find over here....chocolate chips maybe???!!! While I'm on it. Here is a list of things that I'm sure (well 99% sure) that I cannot find here.

1. Corn Starch
2. Chocolate Chips
3. A wide variety of ice cream (think plan vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and pistachio flavors) I truly miss the occasional bowl of chunky, mint cookies and cream ice cream. You can buy Ben and Jerry's over here if you want to take out a loan.
4. Peanut Butter is not impossible to find, but it is not easy or cheap. We do have some Eastern foods stores that sell some "ok" priced natural peanut butter, but we miss our natural peanut butter from the States.
5. BBQ Sauce. Right now I make my own but we miss the good, spicy stuff from Kansas City.
6. Mayonnaise without dijon mustard added. It can be found, but for me it is in one store hidden on the bottom shelf.
7. Canned pumpkin.
8. Bottled salad dressing. The French are masters at making their own vinaigrettes. They really have no need for the bottled stuff (much to my husband's disappointment). We have found some bottled dressings, but they really should just stick to making their own.
9. Mountain Dew (I'm happy about this, and Jonathan is not). :)
10. Good plastic wrap!
11. Ziplock bags. All of our Ziplocks get washed until they have holes in them.

Honestly, there is not a lot on our list anymore! Each month we seem to find something new that we had missed before, and it makes our day! Also, if we are in a big bind, we can find most "American" items at a store near the Eiffel Tower. However, walking into that store to buy chocolate chips at around $6.00 a bag is quite outrageous. I was excited when I saw that they had Cheerios there, and quickly withdrew my excitement when I saw the 7 euro ($10) price tag on them. Oh la la!

To continue, I think have given you a fairly good idea of what we buy over here in my last two posts. It really is quite easy (after the initial culture shock and first year fog have lifted) to find "familiar" cooking ingredients here. In my smaller stores, we do not have very many choices. However, it is not hard to cook like I would in the US.

Here are some links from Google maps that will help you better see where we shop.

Franprix is where we buy our eggs, jelly, American bread, and a few other odds and ends.

Lidl is comparable to an Aldi in the States, and I buy quite a few groceries here.

Monoprix is where we get our milk and our coffee and teas. Any kind of school supplies are usually bought here also. This particular Monoprix is only a grocery store. However, there are many that carry household items as well as a large selection of clothing items and even a book section.

Picard is a frozen food store. It's great in a pinch, and actually has very good food. It is right across the street from our building.

This is our local fruit and vegetable market around the corner from us. I love shopping there.

If you would like to explore our neighborhood a little more, here is our apartment building that you can start from (1 rue François Coppée). Our apartment is on the right side, 3rd floor with the shutters opened, and above the blue car. Enjoy!!

My Parisian Grocery Cart--Part 2

One interesting thing to note about Paris grocery stores is that they are around 4x smaller than the average ones in the US. I walk 4 to 11 isles in a grocery store depending on the store and how much they carry. That said, there are a few within the city limits that are only 1/2 as big as a Walmart or HyVee. That means they look giant to us! Occasionally, we will head outside of the city limits to shop at a "big" store much like a Walmart or Target super center. However, since we do not have a car, and we must take everything back by train we only shop at these once or twice a month for diapers and a few cheaper clothing items.

Also, I thought you might like to see how we buy our food...

The coins are 2 euros, 1 euro, 50 centimes, 20 centimes, 10 centimes, 5 centimes, 2 centimes, and 1 centime.

And now here are some more items in my grocery cart!

This is the most common type of cereal that we buy. Most cereals here are packed with sugar and chocolate. Cheerios are not sold here, or anything plan like them. This is the healthiest version I can find here. Making my own would be an option. However, time just doesn't permit for that right now.

Here you can see our baking flour next to the cereal. I purposely did this to show you how small the packages of flour come. They are around half the size of the flour packages in the US.

Now this is an interesting fact. When I buy potatoes in France they are almost always very clean. I remember having to scrub potatoes after buying them in the US. The same goes for carrots. The dirt is scrubbed away. We still wash them, but it's nice not having

This is the beef that we buy here. You can buy fresh beef in packages like in the States; however, buying frozen is a lot cheaper.

These are the oils I buy. We use sunflower oil for popcorn and olive oil for everything else, and yes olive oil is expensive here too.

And this lovely item is Bonne Maman jelly, and it is amazing. It is definitely the best jelly we have every had (not including my grandma's. Hers will never be replaced). There are so many different flavors, but we are people of classic taste in this family and usually enjoy the blueberry or strawberry. I have heard that you can buy this in the States, but I'm sure it is less expensive here.

This tube contains tomato paste.

And this is plain tomato sauce, which is what I use for my spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce bases.

Here is what a package of butter looks like. Not that it is that much different; however, I do find recipes that say "1 stick of butter" to be kind of annoying now. How I miss the packages of butter with the measuring labels on the side. Of course, instead of measuring out a half cup of butter, I just eye it. :)

Buying liquid vanilla is possible here. However, it is much cheaper to buy it in a sugar form. You use the same amount of the vanilla sugar in a recipe as you would with the liquid vanilla, and so far I have found no taste difference.

These are the baking powder packets. Usually, about 2 tablespoons are in a packet. One thing missing from the baking world over here is baking soda, so we have it shipped to us occasionally. Baking soda is like gold in our household!

Powdered sugar comes in containers like this one.

And although this is about my Parisian Grocery Cart, I always buy my cleaning supplies at the grocery. So here are some of the things I use. These two are my clothing "spray and wash" and carpet spray.

Here you see my glass cleaner (looks the same huh?) and multi purpose cleaner. I should also mention that they have Mr. Clean over here. It is called Monsieur Propre!

And finally, here is the laundry detergent.

Well, that's all for now! I'll post one more grocery cart post next week! Have a great rest of this week!

My Parisian Grocery Cart--Part 1

As I was looking back on my blog, I realized that I hadn't ever described what my grocery cart contains each week. I though you might find it interesting, so here is a little photo journal of what we buy and how we buy it!

Each week, I go to approximately 4 stores in order to everything I need. One is a discount shop similar to Aldi. The others are two grocery chains, and I go to each in order to find things that I can't at the other. I also shop weekly at our corner fruit and vegetable market (which has the most amazing pears right now).

This is our grocery caddy. The stores have grocery carts to shop with, and it is fine to park this at the entrance before you being your shopping. The other option is to take this in with you and use it as the cart. What we do varies from store to store.

Milk is usually sold a little differently in France. There is milk that you can buy cold and milk that you can buy off the shelf at room temperature. The milk you can buy cold taste like any milk in the US. However, the milk on the shelf has a different twang to it. Personally, it has been hard for me to get used to. We almost always buy the milk on the shelf. Why?...because it's much cheaper! This is our favorite brand of milk. It is the organic, half-cream, store-brand milk. And, yes, I said half-cream. You can get milk two ways here, half-cream and full-cream!

In other countries, you learn very quickly what can be substituted for ingredients. One of those substitutions for us has been using crème fraiche instead of sour cream. I now love crème fraiche! It's a little thicker, and the taste isn't quite as sharp as sour cream.

We have yet to see a white egg in France, and they are not sold in the refrigerated section.

This is the brand of yogurt we buy. France has the most amazing selection of yogurts. Their whole milk yogurts are great, but we only buy those for special treats.

We eat a lot of oatmeal in our house. Thankfully it is cheap and easy to find. In our grocery store we have found two brands to choose from. There are no individual, microwaveable packets with fake flavorings. Just plan, healthy boxes of oatmeal!

One thing that I did not realize before moving to France was that dijon mustard is the only mustard you can find. Occasionally our discount store will sell "American mustard". However, we have gotten used to the taste, and it is great to cook with! This brand comes in a cup with cartoon characters on it. After is is used, we will wash it and use it as a cup for Claire or Matthew. They love getting those new cups every couple of months.

The next two pictures are of some wonderful "for special times" treats we have discovered in France.

This is Speculoos. It is made from the cookie of the same name, and it is wonderful! For taste comparison, it is like taking graham crackers and mixing them into a peanut butter like consistency. Some love it and some don't, but we love it (occasionally)!

And this is my new, favorite chocolate flavor. It is cranberry/almond dark chocolate. Amazing!

This post could go on forever, so I will split it into two or three different parts. Hope you enjoyed seeing inside our grocery bag! Let me know if there are any French grocery curiosities that you might have.